1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to integrated circuits and more particularly to flexible connectivity to such integrated circuits.
2. Description of Related Art
As is known, an audio codec (coder/decoder) is used in almost all equipment that includes an audio component (e.g., CD players, dictaphones, personal computers, laptops, DVD players, et cetera). In general, an audio codec is implemented as an integrated circuit and includes a digital interface, analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters, and an analog mixing circuitry. The digital interface provides to, and receives digitized audio signals from, a digital processing circuitry of the corresponding equipment. The digitized audio signals received via the digital interface are converted into analog signals via the digital-to-analog converters. The analog mixing circuitry may mix the converted analog signals with other analog signals or pass them unmixed to one of the outputs of the audio codec. Such outputs include a headphone driver output and a line-level output.
An audio codec may receive analog audio signals from external sources via a microphone input or line-in input. The analog-to-digital converters convert the received analog audio signals into digitized audio signals, which are then provided to the digital interface. In addition to, or in the alternative, the received analog audio signals may be provided to the analog mixing circuitry for passing to an output of the audio codec and/or for mixing with other analog signals, where the mixed analog signals are provided to one of the audio codec outputs.
Typically, the equipment incorporating an audio codec includes jacks for coupling external output devices (e.g., headphones, line-out) to the analog outputs of the audio codec and for coupling external input devices (e.g., line-in, microphone) to the inputs of the audio codec. Further, the jacks are usually colored coded and/or labeled to indicate their particular function. Despite such labeling and/or color-coding, some customers incorrectly couple external input devices (e.g., microphones) and/or external output devices (e.g., headphones, cable to a receiver) to the equipment, which then does not operate properly. Often, the customer will call the technical support group of the manufacturer for assistance. Supporting this type of service call is expensive, in time and personnel, to the manufacturer.
In addition to avoiding such service calls, many manufacturers desire design flexibility when developing equipment that includes an audio component. Current audio codec integrated circuits do not offer such flexibility in that the pin-out of the integrated circuits is fixed.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for programmable analog input/output pins of an integrated circuit.